New records and new species of Miracinae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) from Australia and Papua New Guinea, with a key to world <i>Mirax</i> species
Abstract The genera of Miracinae, currently in something of a state of flux, are discussed with respect to their morphological and molecular attributes. Centistidea Rohwer, 1914 is treated provisionally as a valid genus, distinct from Mirax Haliday, 1833, based partly on propodeal morphology, though this is acknowledged to be an unstable character across the subfamily. Molecular data from two previous studies of Australian Miracinae are discussed. Centistidea albantennalis Liu & Polaszek, 2014 is newly recorded from Papua New Guinea. Two new species of Centistidea are described from Australia: Centistidea cellula Liu & Polaszek, sp. nov. and Centistidea paraillidops Liu & Polaszek, sp. nov. Two new species of Mirax : Mirax tasmaniensis Liu & Polaszek, sp. nov. and Mirax polita Liu & Polaszek, sp. nov. are described from Australia. Mirax arcicensis Slater‐Baker & Fagan‐Jeffries, 2022, M. caelicus Slater‐Baker & Fagan‐Jeffries, 2022 and M. supremus Slater‐Baker, 2025 are transferred to Centistidea , hence the following new combinations Centistidea arcicensis (Slater‐Baker & Fagan‐Jeffries, 2022) comb. nov. , Centistidea caelica (Slater‐Baker & Fagan‐Jeffries, 2022) comb. nov. and Centistidea suprema (Slater‐Baker, 2025) comb. nov. A key to Mirax species of the world is provided, based mainly on published descriptions.
Authors
- Mollie‐Rosae Slater‐Baker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0627-3117)
- Andrew Polaszek
- Zhen Liu
Institutions
- Natural History Museum (GB)
- Hunan University of Arts and Science (CN)
- The University of Adelaide (AU)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Austral Entomology
- Published
- 2026-01-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/aen.70037
- Primary Topic
- Hymenoptera taxonomy and phylogeny
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Scholarship Council
- Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province